no title

Obstructionism is in the eye of the beholder

Letters Policy

The Dispatch welcomes letters to the editor from readers. Typed letters of 200 words or
fewer are preferred; all might be edited. Each letter must include name, home address and daytime
phone number.
Dispatch.com also posts letters that don't make it to print in
The Dispatch.

FAX

Also in Opinion

Subscribe to The Dispatch

Already a subscriber?
Enroll in EZPay and get a free gift!
Enroll now.

Monday January 6, 2014 5:36 AM

I respond to the Thursday
Dispatch editorial “‘No’ leads nowhere.” Talk about leading nowhere; it’s an editorial
that set out to criticize obstructionism and ended up fueling obstructionism.

Readers who have a sense of fairness will note that the editorial’s remedies seem to apply only
to Democrats. “A leader finds ways to work with those who oppose him,” it opined. When Gov. John
Kasich wisely bypassed the legislature to expand Medicaid, did
The Dispatch criticize him for “ruling out negotiation” and “delivering ultimatums?”

When U.S. Reps. Steve Stivers and Pat Tiberi followed Sen. Ted Cruz, a fellow Republican, down
the government-shutdown path, readers never saw a
Dispatch editorial criticizing the Republican delegation's intransigence or lack of
leadership. Like Cruz, the newspaper saved that criticism for President Barack Obama
exclusively.

Every time I read one of the countless editorials against Obamacare, it makes me wonder why the
editorial board or any Republican would have endorsed Mitt Romney. After all, he and the Heritage
Foundation provided the legislative template for this law that “threatens to destroy America,” to
use the hyperbolic language of the right. As soon as Obama and Democrats embraced it, Republicans
disavowed it. And so it goes.

Bloomberg.com reports that corporate profits have grown by 171 percent under Obama and are at a
record-high percentage of the gross domestic product, while we’ve had 45 months of uninterrupted
private-sector job growth.

And yet Republicans getting richer complain about the economy and the corporate tax rate while
voting 47 times to repeal or defund Obamacare.

Income inequality in the U.S. is shrinking our middle class, American workers’ wages have
declined, and
The Dispatch bellyaches that Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Elizabeth Warren
of Massachusetts are out of touch for trying to help struggling senior citizens by raising Social
Security payments.

Sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, if Obama had been for it, the newspaper
would have railed against it. The GOP has been living with a leadership deficit, and “no” is the
only thing it has been able to agree on.